“And so you are true to your oath so I hold to mine before the gods. ”

But it seemed to him those last few words the clerk had given him were the wrong words, and that it should not be before the gods. Despite the book he had against his ribs he could not truthfully swear to Efanor’s gods, nor even to Emuin’s Nineteen, the wizards’ gods. How could he bind himself by that, as Men did?

And why should he think he had ever said differently? he asked himself, and why should he remember orchards where the lowermost streets of the town now stood, and where the outlying stables were?

And why should he remember thisthe lesser hall as the great hall, and choose this for the oath-taking— except that it was the right place? In his earliest days things had Unfolded so rapidly and with such force he had fallen in fits. Now a kind of dizziness came on him. He received other oaths, he said the clerk’s words without objection, and hands clasped his hand, hands hard with weapons practice and hands soft with age, hands missing first fingers… swordsman’s bane… and hands so ringed and jeweled they were all but armored in wealth and power. Rustic Amefel did have rich men, and these earls, like Henas’amef, had had wealth unplundered since earliest days.

Love them? No. Not yet. He armored his heart against them as he had learned to do with the lords of Ylesuin. He looked steadily at them as they swore, and some few looked back, but he remembered that Edwyll had not done what he had done in disregard of the rest of the province.

The last of them in the order of precedence was Lund. Crissand still stood, pale and set of countenance, awaiting some word, some acknowledgment, some dismissal or decision. Once the first and the second had sworn, then he had surely known he would not be the third, or the fifth, but that he would swear last, if at all. The order of precedence was not an empty matter. It was like a banner, like the device on a shield, the land rights, the claim on mutual defense, and not a man in the hall could have forgotten that Crissand stood waiting and empty-handed.

Might anger guide this young man to imprudence? He would know it, if that became the case. Ought he to do differently, or show more mercy? He had been generous, until now.

“Crissand, thane of Tas Aden.”

He knew trials: Mauryl had set very hard ones; and now he set a severe one, and knew not what way Crissand might turn in the next moment, but now, too, he understood how greatly Mauryl had struggled to restrain himself from wishes and wizardry, not to constrain or create what he would draw out. Cuthan was wise and clever, a great treasure in a hall. But this young man… this was the one that touched him. This was the one of all of the earls who would dare his wrath to his face or stand by him to the last.

“May I trust you?” he asked Crissand.

“Your Grace.”

“May I trust you?” he said again. He had not heard my lordfrom Crissand Adiran or any man of Meiden. Not yet.

There was a small silence, and the hall was cold, evoking shivers from weary bodies.

“What does Your Grace ask?” Crissand said in the deep silence of all the lords.

“Truth.”

“And will Your Grace believe me, whatever I say?”

He reached into the gray space, just a breath of a touch, and Crissand flinched.

“Yes,” he said to Crissand, thought, So, and saw a glimmering of fear staring back at him.

“My lord,” Crissand said, half a whisper, and no more.

“ Nowyou say so.” He let the silence linger a moment… did not draw Crissand deeper into the gray space. But this was a young man with wizard-gift. This was an Aswydd, in a hall where his kin had been kings, dispossessed now, and he, at least tonight, was the agent of that dispossession. The silence went on, and on, and the wind blew through that other place, but softly so. “Will you tellme the truth?” Tristen asked.

“My lord,” Crissand said, with a lift of his chin, “ what truthwill you? Truth of my father’s life? Truth of his death? Whichtruth?”

“ Thetruth. No other. Nothing less. Did your father deal with Tasmôrden?”

The earls were thunderstruck, caught on the outskirts of treason, all, all of them but Cuthan, who clenched his staff tightly, and set his jaw like granite. The hands of king’s men strayed closer to their swords. And none else in this room were armed.

But Crissand spoke in firm, clear tones. “ Yes, my lord, he did—Her Grace the Regent being betrothed to the Marhanen, my father dealt with the likeliest rebel in Elwynor.”

Treason, treason laid out plain to see. The lord viceroy had advised him of the truth, after all.

But not an irredeemable truth. These lords had sworn. So had he. And all the truth and all the misdeeds that had existed an hour before were in the past, sealed.

“I dismiss your truth. I forgive it,” he said to the thane of Tas Aden. “And what say you now?”

“That the Sihhë are back in Hen Amas.” The gray space shivered, settled with final force. And Crissand bent the knee and knelt there on the steps of the dais, with the earls and the Dragon Guard for witness. “That you are my lord andmy king.”

Breath might have ceased in the hall.

But it was no more nor less than the Amefin oath, stripped of niggling words like aetheling.

“I Crissand, Earl of Meiden, swear so…” It had become the oath of fealty, an Amefin lord kneelingbefore him, and what in turn was he to answer? Prudence said he should stop the proceeding, set the self-made earl on his feet by main force, and bind himself to nothing. But he felt the little shiver in the gray space that Ninévrisë could make, or now and again someone passing near him.

The Sihhë are back in Hen Amos.

Dared he say so? Dared Crissand? And dared an aetheling kneel in this hall, as to an overlord?

The clerk frantically searched his pages, a crackle of paper in the stillness, and looked up in consternation. The earl of Meiden finished his brief swearing, with: “So I will be faithful to you, on my oath and my honor,” and the hapless clerk searched for his place in an appalled silence.

“I Tristen…”

Another flurry of the clerk’s pages.

“… swear you arethe earl of Meiden, and have the governance of the land of Meiden, and its villages and rights and privileges. I shall defend you and your rights and lands as you defend me and mine. To all this I swear by my life.”

The clerk looked up openmouthed, and he realized he had not said the clerk’s words. He drew Crissand to his feet. He ignored the stares of the clerk, the earls, the priests, and of his own men, and looked the heir of the Aswydds straight in the eye.

“Tell me true, Meiden: areElwynim forces across the river?”

The rustle of pages had ceased. Everything had ceased.

“The rising would signal them to cross,” Crissand said, and he knew he had heard the truth, more, that what Crissand confessed was no surprise to any man in this hall.

“Then I fear you are deceived,” Tristen said. “I suspect Tasmôrden would nothave crossed, not with His Majesty set to plunge into Elwynor from his northern frontier. But he would gladly divert Cefwyn’s attention south to Henas’amef over the next fortnight or so while he takes Ilefínian, which he has just moved to do. Once there, he will slaughter Her Grace’s men and winter in more comfort, recovering his forces. He would leave youto engage Cefwyn this winter, all to his profit, and aid you only sufficient to keep the king fighting here until the spring.” He was as sure as he said the words, as if they had Unfolded, but even the guess he made was not as great as the hazard to their lives he felt in the gray space. “Tasmôrden opposes me, and he would never have crossed the river until he was sure Cefwyn was here and weakened by the encounter, in a hostile province. Then, yes, he would fightin Amefel and spare his own fields. You have provoked the lord viceroy only to Tasmôrden’s gain and none of your own.”